A transmedia storytelling system to transform recorded film memories into visual history

The younger generations are very focused on what surrounds them and on what happens to their friends, but they are hardly interested in written-based historical contents. This creates a loss of cultural heritage passed down for generations. In the attempt of preserving memories and of intercepting the attention of the new generations, in this paper we propose a transmedia storytelling system that uses private film memories and modern communication technologies to tell the story of our past. In particular, the system allows people to explore the city through the eyes of amateur film sequences while walking in city streets: we use an archive of more than 500 h of movies shot by private citizens from 1940 to 1989 and we develop a mobile application that links film memories to city places. Through an experimental assessment, we observed that the system engaged different audiences and increased the users’ interest about history; in particular, young people, who said to be not interested in history, admitted that the system increased their interest about historical contents. In general, the obtained results showed that a transmedia storytelling system might help fostering historical consciousness, as it is able to intercept the attention of younger generations.